Month: May 2014

This past Saturday, I got to listen in on an all-star panel sponsored by the Future of Life Institute on the potential risks and benefits of technologies like artificial intelligence, personal genetics, and automated factories. We heard from George Church, one of the world’s best-known synthetic biologists, on the future of bioengineering; Ting Wu, director …

Every week, I compile a list of biology-related talks at the universities and museums around the Boston Metro Area. A pdf of this week’s complete list can be found here. (PDF includes links to event details.) There aren’t very many talks this week, because almost everybody is busy graduating and/or being on summer break, but …

Part I: Why I’m Writing This Post Last week’s post about ASAN’s statement against the Combating Autism Act shattered the record for page views on this site. I was kind of overwhelmed by how many people who had never met me, many of whom were autistic themselves, reblogged my post and thanked me for writing …

Every week, I compile a list of biology-related talks at the universities and museums around the Boston Metro Area. A pdf of this week’s complete list can be found here. (PDF includes links to event details.) This week’s highlights include: Talk Title that Could Most Easily Be a Band Name/Album Name Combo: “Hellstrip Gardening: Paradise …

BREAKING NEWS: The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) just issued an official statement in opposition to the renewal of the Combating Autism Act. If any of you are wondering, “Why would an autistic advocacy organization oppose a bill that allocates funds toward autism research?” here’s a quick breakdown of the most frequently-cited reasons (in no particular …

Earlier today, I stumbled across this review of Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, that was written by a neuroscience grad student. I liked the piece, but it got me thinking…. Cahalan was a healthy 24-year-old, working at The New York Post, who suddenly “went mad” and would have almost certainly died, …

Every week, I compile a list of biology-related talks at the universities and museums around the Boston Metro Area. A pdf of this week’s complete list can be found here. (PDF includes links to event details.) This week’s highlights include: Visiting famous person of the week: This Saturday Harvard Natural History Museum is showing a …

The Talk: Killing a Midwest Generation In Plain English: How a Chicago non-profit from a low-income neighborhood got an asthma-inducing coal plant shut down The Speaker: Kimberly Wasserman of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) The Sponsor: Fossil Free MIT What it covered: When Kimberly Wasserman of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) took …